You’ve got a practice and staff you’re proud of and patients coming through the door. You have all the tools you need to deliver great care. but are you in total control?
What if your computer network crashes? Will you be able to get up and running quickly or will it spell a disaster for your practice? Will valuable data be lost? What if your highspeed handpieces don’t seem to last very long at all, or what if you seem to have too many out on repair and not enough to handle all your cases? Do you know just how important your utility room is? Sure you know that you need vacuum and air pressure to perform dentistry, but do you know just what your practice should be doing to ensure the water and air pressure that’s critical to your success is performing just right?
Read on as we talk to some of the experts in the areas of handpiece repair and maintenance, computer networking and utility room maintenance. Following some very simple steps and setting up a maintenance protocol can help keep your practice up and running strong, and also can extend the life of key equipment, ultimately saving you money.
“Service technicians stress that dentists should make sure to schedule a yearly preventive maintenance call. The best way to ensure your equipment will be in top working order year after year is to have a professional evaluate and take care of any small items before they become office debilitating,” said Marya Lessard, National Technical Service Manager for Patterson Dental, whose company provides a Preventive Maintenance Guide to its customers with detailed steps.
Handpieces
Henry Schein’s ProRepair service includes one of the largest handpiece repair centers around. Ron Appel, VP and GM Repair Business Group, and Kent Eggleston, Director of ProRepair, each offer up advice on how to properly use and maintain handpieces, as well as how best to repair them when necessary.
“A significant amount of the product that we see in for service, specifically on the handpiece side, the primary reason that they come in for service is poor maintenance,” Appel said. “Where the product is just not being maintained to manufacturers’ specification, therefore bearings burn out, the unit doesn’t have the torque or speed. In some cases it even heats up to temperatures that can create significant safety issues for the patient and for the user.”
Henry Schein’s handpiece repair business, which repairs more than 400 handpieces a day, sees many repairs come in due to lack of maintenance.
“That’s not the only reason, but if you were to speak to our technicians you would find that improper maintenance, improper lubrication, over-sterilization, sometimes sterilization without the right protocol, can burn out bearings and create major issues with the dental handpiece,” Appel said.
All handpiece repairs go back with literature. This usually includes documentation on how to properly maintain the handpiece, some from the original equipment manufacturer, and some from the technician who may include information on the repair summary sheet sent back to the customer.
“I can tell you any time one of our service technicians speaks to a customer about problems with a handpiece we typically bring up the maintenance side. We find that not only are some of our users not maintaining the handpiece properly but they are not using it to the manufacturer’s guidelines,” Appel said.
The typical highspeed drill requires a certain amount of air pressure to be pumped through it to run correctly (about 30-40 psi). Some doctors will increase the air pressure to try to get more speed and torque out of the handpiece. Eggleston warns against this.
“It will improve the cutting performance for some models. But I think the conventional wisdom among doctors is if I turn up my air pressure my handpiece is going to perform better,” he said. “It’s not always the case. But the thing that is always the case is that it will shorten the handpiece life. And handpiece repair over the life of the handpiece is a significant cost. Many times it will exceed the initial purchase price of the handpiece.”
Henry Schein sponsors handpiece and small equipment maintenance classes at trade shows that stress the importance of practices having a proper protocol for the staff member responsible for the sterilization center.
“What makes handpieces a little different is that there’s a maintenance protocol associated with sterilizing handpieces that goes beyond just bagging the handpiece and putting it in the sterilizer,” Eggleston said.
“We teach that the most important thing is to follow some sort of established protocol. There’s the protocol that handpiece manufacturers recommend but there’s also protocol built around other maintenance and maintenance products. Our message is not what maintenance products you use but that you’re following an established protocol that includes some combination of cleaning the handpiece to remove debris, then lubricating the handpiece as part of the whole sterilization reprocessing of the handpiece. It also should include periodic cleaning of the chucking system to maintain proper bur retention during procedures.”
Much of this is just awareness. A practice may not have dedicated staff working the sterilization center and they may lack expertise in terms of how processing a handpiece is different than a hand scaler or a bur or something else that needs to be sterilized.
“The difference between following an established protocol and not following a protocol makes all the difference in the world,” Eggleston said. “Take a little bit of care in terms of following an established procedure, and your practice is going to benefit not only from reduced down time but you’re going to save yourself a lot of money on repairs over the life of the product.”
Large practices should look into investing in a handpiece maintenance machine. This can simplify the process and in the long run deliver a nice return on investment for practices repairing a lot of handpieces.
Appel also said it’s important to make sure that when they do go out for service, the handpieces are worked on by trained technicians.
“One of the other ways to improve the longevity of these products is to make sure that when they are sent out for service that they’re sent to a qualified service repair operation,” he said. “We’ll see other companies that are not using new parts, they’re not using manufactured specified parts and a lot of them can reduce the longevity of the handpiece. Not only is maintenance important but when the customer does have to send it out for repair make sure they select a qualified repair service.”
